1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a digital mobile phone with a character recognition function, and more particularly to a method of storing data in and searching an electronic phone number data book in such a digital mobile phone.
2. Description of the Related Art
A digital mobile phone typically has an auxiliary function to enable the user to store and retrieve phone numbers into and from a memory device provided therein. An electronic phone number data book (hereinafter referred to simply as xe2x80x9cphone bookxe2x80x9d) is a term representing the memory used for this purpose. Hence, once the user has stored the phone numbers into the memory device of such a digital phone, he may retrieve a desired one of the phone numbers stored in the phone book from the memory device instead of inputting the phone number called. To this end, the input keys provided in the mobile phone have been conventionally used to input the names of persons and their respective phone numbers (user data) into the memory device. However, the number of input keys is limited due to the compactness of the mobile phone, making it difficult to quickly and easily input the information.
Therefore, a need exists for a method of quickly and easily storing and retrieving the names and phone numbers of persons stored in the memory of a mobile phone.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide an improved method of storing data in and searching through a phone book in a digital mobile phone with a character recognition function, which enables the user to quickly and easily store and retrieve the names and phone numbers of persons.
According to the present invention, a method of storing user data in a phone book in a digital mobile phone, which includes a key input part, display, touch screen for inputting characters, character code storage for storing character and number codes, character database for storing feature data corresponding to character and number codes, and character recognition device, comprises the steps of setting the mobile phone to a phone number registration mode, transferring touch screen data, generated by pressing the touch screen, to the character recognition device, generating the feature data corresponding to the touch screen data using the recognition device, identifying the feature data stored in the character database, retrieving the number code corresponding to the feature data from the character code storage, displaying the number corresponding to said number code and storing the number code in the phone number storage region of the phone book storage, repeating the first to fourth steps in response to a key input representing character code mode upon detecting no further touch screen data, retrieving the character code corresponding to the feature data from the character code storage, and displaying the character corresponding to said character code and storing the character code in the name storage region of the phone book storage, the character code being associated with the number code.
A method of retrieving said stored user data includes the steps of setting said mobile phone in a search mode, generating a search mode character code corresponding to search mode touch screen data inputted through said touch screen, determining whether the search mode character code is registered in said phone book storage, and displaying a corresponding phone number on said display when the search mode character code is registered in said phone book storage.